wOw, I'm not sure the wedding cake should be considered a wreck... nor should it cost $600 or well anything really (maybe a nice gesture from your friendly bakery), but still not a wreck... the grooms cake on the other hand, is a wreck, in fact I would say it has enough wreck in it for both of the cakes...

I was hoping that $1000 was a joke....but from John's post there, I'm thinking it's not! Holy. Crap. I've done about 20-25 cakes now, and the kick the A$$ of either of those cakes (but hello, especially the Groom's cake-did they even ATTEMPT to smooth it out????) The most I've made on a cake so far? $50. Heck, with my skills, I could have charged these morons $5000. :)

I'm no Martha Stewart, but even *I* could slap frosting on smoother than that first globulosity (groom's cake). And wtf with the the barbells and gadgets? ("Look! The groom has HOBBIES! He's still HIMSELF, even as he gives up his freedom.") Yay for him. I like the top and bottom layers of the wedding cake, in the way that I like Dr. Seuss illustrations. Funky-quirky. The middle layer is "eh." Or "unh"...like a punch in the stomach.Is it Sunday yet?

Now, I've not had a wedding myself...but I'd like to think if the baker showed up with that groom's cake, somebody who loves me would toss the cake in their face, demand the money back, and run down to WalMart for a plain ol' sheet cake with flowers already on it.

Those cakes show lots of bad judgement, from the bride, to the baker, to whoever accepted the delivery.

wv: addon "If we just put more of these addons, no one will notice the frosting crevices!"

I really want to know: what are the contracts brides/grooms make with bakers? Because I'm assuming these people pay up front, and to pay up front and have something like that delivered seems like some kind of breach of contract. Can you get your money back?

These didn't look so bad until I enlarged the photos to see the details. Looks like a case of overwarm-overhumidified fondant... but I think the decorator's heart was in the right place. The worst part is the maiming of the bride's name... "Gloriosity"???

Back story: I'm a liberal arts major with no hopes of a high paying career. Whenever I read about someone raking in major dough for something that doesn't seem that hard, I've been known to say, "Boy, I picked the wrong career."

So let me just say, "Boy, I picked the wrong career." Do you know how hard it is to beg and plead for $1000 worth of fellowships? Do you know how long those applications take? Yet this wreckerator got $1000 for maybe a day's worth of sloppy work.

Is this a joke? I made a wedding cake for a friend and I kid you not, it looked a hundred times better than this crap. Her mom gave me $150 and I was thrilled to get it--paid for my expenses. Those cakes are butt-ugly and not worth $100, much less $1,000. Damn!

Hey John (the hubby of Jen), did that kid really have his left hand blindfolded? No wonder he had problems!

I thought the barbells on the groom's cake were ice cream cones at first, though why they'd have 100 written on ice cream baffled me. And I think the animal on the badge is a woodchuck, because a beaver would have a bigger tail, right?

wow...I'm guessing, hoping, that the heat had something to do with the bloated brides cake, but being from Texas myself, fort worth in fact, like our unfortunate groom! I'm thinking that surely Texas wreckerators could learn to account for the heat. no?

A good rant ignores sentence structure. Oh, and I'm a little French so my subject placement is tainted. I remember, as a child, I shouted to my English professor Mom, "Throw it down the stairs the pillow would you?"

Then she was all, "What?!"And I was all, "You heard me!"And then I distinctly remember a boot to the head.

Well, I could tell you what the...um...decorator?....did wrong, but it's truly pointless because at some point they stood back, dusted off their hands and said, "Yep, that'll do pig, that'll do." I have a seriously difficult time believing a)someone actually charged $1000 for those; and b) someone actually paid $1000 for those. It's a tragedy.

Well maybe an older, inexperienced friend voluntee... well no... There was payment. Toyota was missing a letter, the frosting looked as if someone applied it with a toilet brush... So, therefore, it has earned the title of "One Hot MESS!" (actually two).

Burning questions: Are the "shots" on the quilted layer made of chocolate chips? (organ chord!)

Are there gummy Skeletons hanging from the Pink topper? (DOUBLE organ Chord!!!) aaaaaaaand...

[x-fade to ECU of pink 'cake'. SHOCK ZOOM on a THREE COUNT]

Will Christy EVER be able to read her own name in icing again without moderate seizures and explosive diarrhea???

(TRIPLE organ chord!!!!!!)

The answers to all these questions and more, when "Cake Wrecks" returns after a word from our sponsors.

Ha! That "woodchuck" on the badge is supposed to be a panther (I googled it)! And I had no idea those things on the right were barbells. Can anyone tell is a specific song is listed on the iPod? I hope this cake tastes like chocolate heaven because it looks like poop.

Are you kidding me?! Where to start? Did you see the quilting pattern on the wedding cake? And my four-year-old could do better piping. $600? Seriously??

A friend and I just did our first wedding cake last week. We got $130 for it! And it looks much, much better than that!! Check it out: http://cakesbybrandyandkim.blogspot.com/2010/05/pearls-and-bow.html

I also love how the groom apparently has really boring interests. Um... an iPod! His car! Yeah!

And that frosting job really is pretty tragic. I looked back at photos of the only "wedding" cake I have ever made (it was 3 tiers but was for my sister-in-law's casual reception, and they didn't pay me, so there wasn't a lot of pressure). I am a notoriously bad "froster" and usually end up with a mess and crumbs everywhere... my non-baker husband does a far better job. And, yep, mine looked better. That wreckerator should be very afraid.

I bake one or two cakes a year. I've never taken a decorating class.I don't use fondant.However,I'm pretty sure, with my meager-to-nonexistent decorating skills, that I can do a marginally better job than what was done here. So, if a professional can't even beat my lame skills, then why are they even in this profession?

"...The answers to all these questions and more, when "Cake Wrecks" returns after a word from our sponsors."---------I wouldn't hold my breath; the sponsors were just spotted running down the street, screaming...That is, those who weren't seen jumping out of windows.=^@.@^=

I know the official animal on that groom's cake is supposed to be a panther, but I am voting for the Giant Sloth.And I'm pretty sure I've seen the bride's cake in a hat store. (Why would you have the second layer the same size as the bottom layer. It's so out of proportion. And so very pink.) And how many servings of cake are they getting for that $1,000?And I know this isn't a cake question, but what's the deal with that flower hanging upside down on the wall or floor or whatever.

Am I the only Texan offended by the title? Sure, there are wrecks everywhere, but why single out Texas like that? The worst I've seen haven't been Texan wrecks, and why in the WORLD do some of you assume we're all gun-toting, tobacco-chewing, cammo-wearing rednecks. We're not. I Promise :(

Oh wow! It seems as though everyone wants to be a cake decorator these days. We can thank the food network for that one. Unfortunately most people don't realize that decorating takes talent. I'm a pastry chef and I do some decorating on the side (at home mostly, but sometimes for extra cash at a bakery) and I could do a better job with my feet. Sure, the ones I make at the bakery turn out better because they have proper equipment, but jeeez!! My home decorated cakes are much cheaper and look a helluva lot better. I can't believe anyone would pay anything let alone $1000 for those travesties. The only way they'd be even kind of acceptable is if they were free, and even then!To the folks thinking they chose the wrong career, I assure you this cake "decorator" won't get much business unless her customers are visually impared. Like I said, not everyone has what it takes.

Oh, it's a *car.* Um... is it the... front? I definitely thought it was a cassette tape until I read the comments. It's still not entirely clear to me.

And I'm 100% behind Jen and John on the wedding cake. The bottom is cracked and caving, the edges are uneven, the color is reminiscent of Pepto Bismol, and parts of it look like they were iced by my epileptic dog.

@TruthSeekerLA - I almost laughed til I cried at, "the frosting looked as if someone applied it with a toilet brush." Bwa ha ha ha...I wonder if the baker should have just left the bride's name as "Chrissy"? Would that be more offensive than the sad attempt to change the s into a t?

This is so sad.. looking at both cakes, I'd say that neither of them have support for the upper layers, and the weight is squishing the bottom tiers. The chocolate grooms cake is suffering from too much weight, or has been dropped.. even so, I'm still appalled at the horrible job the baker did on the accenting pieces.. is that really supposed to be a car??

As for the hot pink mess.. well... you can see the fondant cracking under the weight.. and it's just unforgiveable.

OMG. I know my DH could do a better job, and he hasn't had any training, just years of watching me. In fact, I'm fairly certain my 12 yo DS would do a better job as he wants to open a cake shop with me when he gets older. I sure with I could get paid $1000 for a cake. I guarentee that it would look nothing like what this couple received.

I figured it out! Relax folks! Remain calm! The groom's cake was really made by the groom to hide the fact that he took the $400 he was given to get a cake for himself to the strip club... Er... I mean, to a fine upstanding gentleman's establishment.

I can make out the Goo Goo Dolls on the ipod, can't make out the song though. And why are the cookie things on the groom's cake so warped? And the wedding cake....I'd be crying the wrong kind of tears if that was my cake at my wedding. Shame on the decorator...

I'm being nice when I say maybe the cakes(and decorator) were victims of the summer heat. I live in the same part of Texas these cakes came from.

However, heat does not explain the decorations on the groom's cake or the crazy pinkness of the bride's cake. It looks like a cake for a teenager's birthday party, not a wedding. Also sandwiching a square cake between two circle cakes just makes everything look wonky.

I can not believe that anyone would even dare pay for those cakes! If it was my wedding cake/grooms cake, and I saw them like that I would flip out! I could have decorated a better cake than either one of those, BEFORE I took my cake decorating classes.

I just clicked to enlarge both cakes, and all I can say is, "oh...yikes!"

These are not anywhere near $1000 worth of work. Also I thought the pink cake was a mangled Gloria, until I zoomed in and realized it's a mangled Christy. I don't even need to point out all the other issues that arise upon closer inspection.

WV burget: When bakers forget something. Sometimes bakers burget that customers are going to see their work and pay them for it.

Mmm...nothing puts a man in the mood for nuptial bliss quite like big lumps of doggy doo doo with plastic bits randomly stuck on.....................shame his intended will be bug eyed and climbing the walls from the artificial colorant in that bilious pink icing.

@Hillary 1:01 - nobody is disparaging cake decorators by implying that it's easy or that anyone can do it. It's just that if there are people willing to pay $400-$600 for abominations that look like they take no time or talent, then let me be that abominator.

The wedding cake is pretty bad - the bottom two layers are the same size, and the fondant is not tidy at all - the square layer should have right angles. But I can see why people are asking why it's considered a wreck, when compared to the groom's cake. Holy Toledo. I'm not even touching the icing job, because it's obvious it is pathetic. But I am wondering 1) why there is a two-dimensional shot of the grill of a "Toyot" or a "Totot" and not the entire vehicle (notice the license plate says "NLUV09"), and 2) why choose the Goo Goo Dolls to be on the iPod. They're a fine band, but I find it hard to believe that of all the things you could do with a groom's cake, one would choose to feature the Goo Goo Dolls. I think the song is "Slide," but I'm not sure because it really looks like "Sliats," which is not the title of a song by anyone. Also, the car grill totally looks like a cassette tape.

I think that people are beginning to believe that The Learning Channel is actually about learning--as in, "hey, if I watch a couple of episode of Cake Boss, I can learn to make a killing making incredibly detailed cakes!"

The frightening thing is that people pay them based on this belief. Now, I'm not saying I could do better--but, dang it, I could do as well. And I would TOTALLY undercut that price. I'm a grad student...if I make five bucks profit, I'm happy.

The wedding cake looks like it had potential, actually. I like the pink and brown (though I would have used a paler shade of pink). It's just a shame they couldn't have found someone with a little more talent xD

Well, I've got to think that maybe the bride and groom were actually doing the wreckerator a favor and giving them a $1000 scholarship to cake decorating school in exchange for the "before" cakes...and hopefully they will then get some very nice "after" cakes as a "thank you" for a future anniversary party. Otherwise they've just been robbed...

Wow, I think I've been on this site too long since I thought, "that wedding cake isn't thaaaat bad!". OK, the bride's taste is questionable if she selected a cake quite that pink, the writing is a mess, and the bottom layer is collapsing (Texas summer heat, which I learned about last week? Although I still think that they should have planned it better since the top dome is fine!).

Now, the groom's cake... wow. I thought the barbells were gambling coins until I clicked on the picture, a Toyota FJ's front end does NOT resemble a cassette tape, and the "cookies" of decoration aren't even rolled flat. And do NOT qualify as decoration! Seriously... like many others here, I'm an amateur, but I've produced better cakes. Even my "wreck" cakes are better! When appearances matter, my baking looks fine-- although my emphasis will always be on taste over looks! I just hope that the cakes tasted wonderful, that Texas bakery prices are over-inflated, and that the wedding party only intended to buy delicious cakes and didn't ante up for attractive. I hope?

Oh good grief! All that pink is making me think of Pepto Bismol, which is what I need after seeing these wrecks.

Ok, I will say one positive thing about it. August 15 is a great date. That is the day I got married to my wonderful husband. Luckily our cake was a lot nicer. It almost wrecked because some idiot put it on a rickety table.

I hope Jim & Christy's marriage is a good one, after that wreck of a cake they deserve some good marriage juju.

drgns4vr said..."I know the official animal on that groom's cake is supposed to be a panther, but I am voting for the Giant Sloth."

I agree! I guessed either a beaver or a woodchuck, but it looks more like a Giant Sloth. Yes, having grown up near Fort Worth, I know one of Fort Worth's nicknames is Panther City (apparently there were actual panthers walking the town's streets in the early days), but that ain't no panther on that cake.

Miradwyn said..."Wow, even if the pink cake wasn't collapsing in on itself it would be a wedding wreck. It looks like the birthday cake of girlie girlie 13 year old."

Oh, I wish you hadn't said that. Now I'm certain the bride must BE a girlie girlie 13-year-old. If the groom is also about 13, that would explain all the stuff on his cake, too.

I have a term for cakes like that. They're "monkey iced," as in, they look like a monkey (possibly a drunken one) did the honors. If that's the real price for those two, someone needs to ask for a refund, unless they DO like monkey-iced cakes.

Wow. That's criminal. I feel so lucky that I had a gorgeous wedding cake, despite the fact that I had to order it from almost 3,000 miles away. (Destination wedding.) Check those references, brides and grooms! (And, my cake was only $500!)

craftinqueen75 said... "I'm guessing that the bride's colors were "Blush" and "Bashful"." ******************Hmmmm....I was thinking more along the lines of "Dopey" and "Sleazy."(YOU know--some of the OTHER dwarves?)

What on earth happened to the groom's cake? It looks cracked and just plain horrible almost like it fell off the table and someone quickly put it back hoping no one would notice the damage.. and that pink wedding cake?? Scary.

Hilary, you do realize when I say, "I picked the wrong career" it's a joke, right? Obviously if I had the talent required I would have picked that career - and done decently at it. And then it wouldn't have been the wrong career. The fact that I announced I'm a liberal arts student should have tipped you off that I'm lacking in such talents...

Sigh. Cake decorators should know that we really do appreciate those with good talents, but at the same time we reserve the right to snicker at those who don't have them but charge as if they do. That's why I come to this blog...

After re-reading all the comments, I've come to the conclusion that this decorator had been watching "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network.

The Charm City Cakes website says the starting price for their cakes is $1,000, so this decorator offered a BOGO deal -- buy one for $1,000 and get the second one free.

Too bad he/she wasn't able to copy the excellent work of the CCC decorators who, if you listen to the opening credits, are art majors. Duff Goldman is the only baker in the bunch. (Note to Jen: this CCC does not mean cupcake cakes. Relax. Deep breath.)

He/she also didn't watch the program carefully to see them put dowels in the cakes to support their weight and sometimes wait to stack the cakes until they are at the reception site.

It is hard to believe that someone would actually have ordered from this decorator if they had ever seen his/her work. Pitiful, just pitiful.

Here in this blessed country we know for a FACT that no matter how closely these cakes resemble booty, chocolate frosting makes up for it all. So, yeah the cakes are....uh....well, there really aren't words, BUT! they are frosted! In. Chocolate. God Bless the USA. And God bless chocolate frosting. Especially the kind with the mini chips in it.

But it's clearly the bride's fault! She should have checked the baker's portfolio! And paid more for a higher-quality cake! You pay a mere thousand dollars for dessert, and of COURSE you're going to end up with stuff like... that. Yeah!

(Sorry, the thread seemed to be lacking the usual contingent of "the bride was a stupid slacking cheapskate" posts. Whether you paid $150 or $600, professional wrecks like these are inexcusable.)

It makes me sad whenever there's "victim-blaming" with the wedding wrecks. Either the bride and groom must have been cheapskates to get what they got, or - in this case, when we know what was paid and can't make that conjecture - they were "morons" for paying, or letting the cake get put out on display.

A lot of bakeries require most if not all of the money up front for this kind of thing (in my experience, apparently some must be different, judging by the comments). Given that on your average wedding day there're a million things to get done and an epic level of stress for everyone involved, I'm really not surprised that the cake would get put out, no matter how wrecky it was. At that late stage in the game all you can do is pray it tastes better than it looks (and of course take a picture to send in to CakeWrecks).

I'd hope someone would be able to demand a partial refund at least, but again, considering Wedding Stress, I wouldn't blame the couple if they just chalked it up to a pricey lesson learned about selecting a baker. I certainly wouldn't be so quick to judge or insult the couple, as NOBODY deserves a wreck on their wedding day.

I once had an expensive, horrible cake experience, regardless of having researched the bakery. When I asked for a partial refund, the bakery only would offer more future cake, as if anyone would take them up on that, considering the work they'd just shown. I should have taken it, though, and then I should have proceeded to pelt the manager with big handfuls of it. I have the feeling that no jury would have convicted me. :(

I'm surprised at the folks who think the top dome of the wedding cake is OK. Even before looking at the enlarged photo, you can see that the squares of the "quilting" are all uneven rather than uniform. If you look at the larger version, you can see how all the...well, I'll call them buttons, not knowing the proper term...are not round and are also not uniform in shape or size. And that topper. EEEEK!

WV: upermaxi - what we women sometimes need at "that time" of the month

So the groom's cake is meant to explain to anyone who a.) doesn't already know and b.) cares anyway, what the groom's hobbies are. Check.

The groom's hobbies include: having something to do with the Fort Worth Police department (shouldn't that be a 'job'?) and listening to an I-Pod. Kewl.

I know everything is bigger in Texas, but 100 lb. hand weights? It is difficult to see how something in such a small form factor could be that heavy.

What I initially was certain was a cassette tape turns out to be the front of a 'Toyot' (let's hear it for click-to-enlarge). So this adds 'driving an obscure vehicle' to the hobbies list, which completes the groom's portrait.

I saw the big '15' on the wedding cake and almost panicked (Total size of the blended family? The bride's age?), but then I saw the 'August' to the left. If this were just a cake, $600 would be way out of line. But since it also reminded guests what month and day it was, the price is justified. You can't get a calendar cake just anywhere, you know. Perhaps the date on the cake is a mnemonic device for the groom...

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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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